Bus drivers and bankers partner for kids

The third Pack the Bus collection will take place from noon to 2 p.m. Friday at Firstbank's downtown Ionia branch on West Main Street.

By Karen Botakaren.bota@sentinel-standard.com

Bus drivers in the Ionia Public School District are making sure students and their teachers have the supplies they need when school resumes next Tuesday. The third Pack the Bus collection will take place Friday at Firstbank's downtown Ionia branch on West Main Street.
Firstbank employees and IPSD bus drivers have partnered this month to collect everything from pencils and crayons to backpacks, as well as money to purchase additional supplies, like tissues and hand sanitizer, for classrooms. The public is encouraged to come down and bring items to “pack the bus.”
Firstbank gives the school supplies to principals during the first week of school, said bus driver Mary Ellen Groom, and “it's like Christmas in September. They are so happy.”
Groom said she saw a similar effort underway for Kent County schools and thought, “Why couldn't we do that?
“We as bus drivers sometimes know the need before the teachers do,” Groom said. “We have a different relationship with kids and their families.”
Bus drivers are the first person students see in the morning from the school, and the last person they see at night, she added. “Parents who might not come to the school interact with us because their kids are on the bus.”
Last Friday, Assistant Dexter Street Branch Manager Nell Altobelli brought backpacks out to the bus parked in her parking lot. Employees had purchased them to donate to the program. She said fundraising at her branch was going well.
“People are donating more money, and it's bills instead of just change,” she said, adding that the branch raises money for other community projects, too. “Our customers on a fixed income with children in school – they are the ones giving the most.”
For elementary school students, their first grasp of something of their own that is private is their backpack, said Groom. For many kids, it has to last the whole school year. If it gets damaged or lost, the student may never get another one.
Groom's granddaughter Abby Wedge, 11, helped with the collection at Firstbank's Dexter Street branch. Although she attends Greenville Public Schools, she came with her grandmother because she thinks the project is helpful to students.
“When I need supplies, I go to my teachers,” she said. “If they don't have it, it's hard to get.”
For bus drivers, the children having backpacks is also a bus safety issue.
“If they are carrying papers and the wind catches it and blows it under the bus or in front of a car, the kids chase the papers,” Groom said. “We can't see them as the bus pulls away. It can be dangerous.”
Bus driver Sharon Blanchard noted that all the supplies collected or purchased through Pack the Bus will stay in the IPSD, and will benefit every student with a need – “no matter what address they come from.
“Bus drivers look at all kids as their own, and we want them to have everything they need for their day,” Blanchard said. “This kind of need is all over the U.S. though, because of governmental funding cuts to schools.”
One way or another, those budget cuts ultimately trickle down to the kids, Groom said.
“With budget cuts, the teachers buy supplies out of their own pockets,” she added. “These days, many of those pockets are empty.”
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